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ABC Listen. Hello there, my friends.
My name is Ruby and you are listening to Newstime.
Hello, Ruby. Nice to be here, Ruby.
On Newstime, we count down five of the best stories from Australia and around the world.
Today's show has clever kids making marvellous potions, awesome athletes winning gold, and a discovery about bubble -blowing whales.
What do you think? Should we make like a whale and dive on in?
I'm ready. Story number five.
We are deep into the Paralympic Games and the Aussies have been winning big.
Have you been following the Paralympics?
I'm planning to watch the Paralympics.
The Paralympics is the event after the Olympics and what's special about it is that it's for athletes with disabilities.
Well done to the athletes.
There has been plenty to celebrate.
Para athlete James Turner won gold in the men's 400 -metre T36 race and beat his own world record.
Swimmer Thomas Gallagher is going home with multiple medals for his efforts in the pool, including gold.
Bocia players Jamison Leeson and Daniel Michelle both won silver medals and wheelchair racer Madison De Rosario won bronze at her fifth Paralympic Games.
And that, my friends, is just to name a few.
Well done, Paralympians.
This year, Paralympians who win medals get the same prize money as Olympians who won medals at the Olympics.
This wasn't always the case.
Olympians used to get more money than athletes with a disability.
Wheelchair racer Madison De Rosario said that this support, it tells Paralympians that they are valued.
She also said it shows the public that athletes with a disability are equal to non -disabled athletes.
Athletes and sports lovers are hoping that this is a step towards getting more people with disability involved in sport because sport should be for everybody.
Great work, Paralympians.
We can't wait for the next Games in four years' time.
Keep trying. Never give up.
Hey, German Paris. Story number four.
Tell me, do you ever mix up pretend potions at your house?
I just get random stuff from the garden and just put in a thing, match it, then just mix.
I put, like, dirt in water, but that's about it.
When I was a kid, I used to get leaves and then smash them and then mix it with dirt and water.
When Heman Vekkela was very little, he loved to mix up potions.
His family noticed this and they bought him a chemistry set for Christmas.
Heman became obsessed.
He'd research all the different things in his kit to understand what they all were and what they could do.
Now, Heman is 15 and he's still mixing things together.
The difference is now he does it in a laboratory with adult scientists.
And recently Heman worked on a soapy mixture that might just be able to prevent or even cure some kinds of skin cancer.
That is very, very, very amazing.
Mine officially exploded.
He might be the next Albert Einstein.
He must have infinite IQ.
How does a soap cure cancer?
That is a very good question.
Heman learned about something called emiquimod, which is something used to help fight some kinds of skin cancers.
It's pretty expensive, though, and Heman wondered whether he could get it to people more easily and for cheaper.
After lots of tests and experiments, he figured out how to put the emiquimod in a bar of soap.
And now Heman spends his time after school and on weekends in a laboratory working with scientists to perfect his idea.
He's hoping he can make his invention as cheap as possible so that anyone who needs it can use it.
Can you imagine how Heman must feel?
Very proud of himself for having lots of IQ.
Heman has just been named the Time Magazine Kid of the Year for his clever idea and his extreme kindness.
Heman wants to help as many people as possible.
As for his research, there's still a lot of work to be done before his amazing soap is available for everyday people to use.
But in the meantime, Heman stays hard at work and keeps dreaming big.
Good job and keep trying.
Keep trying to make more stuff like that and never give up.
Story number three.
Joe Michelsons is 89 years old and lives in an aged care home in the country England.
When Joe was very young, there was a big conflict called World War II, and it meant that Joe had to leave school to work on farms, so he never learned how to write.
At schools here in Australia, most kids learn how to write when they're five or six years old.
Well, they said this letter means sometimes can do this sound and this sound, and you can sound out the letters and then you can kind of work out how to spell them.
I remember only at the right two pages or sees.
Because then you can read.
Now that Joe is much older and has some more spare time, he's decided, finally, to learn this useful skill.
He has spent months working with a teacher, tracing letters and learning sounds.
He kept his writing lessons a secret, so that after months of hard work, he could surprise his family.
Joe wrote his daughter Julie a letter.
It said, "'Dear Julie, thank you for everything you do for me.
"'I love you so much.
Love, Dad.'" Julie was thrilled to receive it and pretty surprised.
I think he would be proud of himself.
I think he feels pretty clever, cos he finally learned how to write.
Joe's teacher says everyone is really proud of him and that his achievement shows it's never too late to learn something new.
Maybe, like, he can send letters to his friends.
He could write, like, books for himself, like, about him when he was a kid.
Could write about the war and his childhood.
Fantastic ideas. Happy writing, Joe.
Story number two. Mckisha is a Year 8 Indigenous student in Kempsey in New South Wales.
Recently, she started learning a new way to communicate, using sign language.
Sign language is for deaf people and they talk to each other with hand signals.
I know a bit of sign language, actually.
I learnt, like, one piece of sign language from Bluey and I also learnt some from my sister.
Learning sign language is an awesome thing to do.
I've spent some time learning sign language too.
In Australia, the main sign language used is called Auslan, but that's not the only one out there.
What if Indigenous people are deaf?
They will use sign language.
They would have to create it.
I think there would be sign language for the Indigenous people.
Spot on. Indigenous sign language, called ISL, is being taught in some schools across New South Wales, alongside Auslan.
Because Mckisha has hearing loss and she's Indigenous, her teachers have started teaching her and her classmates both of these signed languages.
There are a couple of differences between ISL and Auslan.
In ISL, the word for Australia is a fist sitting on the back of a hand.
That represents Leroo, the big rock in the middle of the country.
For Indigenous students who are deaf or hard of hearing, like Mckisha, learning ISL is a great way to learn a new way to communicate and connect to culture at the same time.
They want to feel like they belong and they want to feel connected.
Over the next few years, more schools across New South Wales will have Auslan and Indigenous sign language as part of their syllabus, meaning more students will learn the languages whether they're hearing or deaf.
In the meantime, Mckisha is just happy to be connecting with her classmates and her culture.
And now, my friends, it's time for...
Wow Of The Week. This story made me go wow because I never knew Wales were that intelligent.
Every day, we use tools to make our jobs easier.
Tell me some tools you can think of.
Hammer. You take nails out and hammer nails in.
A screwdriver. A saw.
You cut up wood. Yep.
And humans aren't the only ones who've figured out how to use tools.
Gorillas and orangi tanks have recently been found that they can use tools.
Chimpanzees, they use sticks to go into termite holes and take termites and go, yummy, yummy.
And you can add another animal to your list of tricky tool users, Humpback whales.
Really? What tools do they use?
Humpback whales create bubble nets to hunt for food.
Scientists who were studying humpback whales in Alaska found that the whales blow bubbles in complicated patterns.
All the bubbles come together and form a sort of watery net that rounds up the krill and captures them, ready for the whales to eat.
How does water catch fish?
How does air catch fish?
Like a vacuum cleaner underwater.
Yeah, sort of. The whales can control the number of rings in their bubble nets and the size of the net so they can catch as much food as possible.
Then they dive on top of the net they've created and eat all the krill inside it.
Using these carefully crafted nets means that whales can catch up to seven times more prey in a single dive without using any more energy.
Pretty clever. Scientists have officially added humpback whales to the list of animals that not only use tools but make them too.
It means humpback whales have a greater chance of survival in the wild because they can hunt and feed as much as they please.
And that is it, my friends, the end of today's Countdown.
I don't know about you but I had a whale of a time.
Thank you. Thank you, Ruby.
You are very welcome.
I'll catch you next week with five fresh stories.
Bye, Ruby. See you later.
See you later, or as they say in Tamil, sandip fum.
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